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The Human Rights situation in the North and the East, and indeed in all parts of the country continues to deteriorate. Not holding anyone accountable for the grave crimes committed during the last stages of the war, has its heavy price. Similar incidents are bound to recur and that is what is happening, particularly in the North and East of the country at present. Recently 109 very young Tamil girls were said to have been recruited to the Army from the Districts of Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu. No formal procedures were followed and some of them have managed to escape and return home. 16 others were said to have suddenly gone down with ‘mass hysteria’ and admitted to the Kilinochchi hospital one day and no one was allowed to meet them. All this raises grave suspicions as to the actual status of these girls in the Army. My colleague, Hon. Shritharan raised the matter in Parliament and he was promptly subjected to a Criminal Investigation Department inquiry in breach of Parliamentary privilege. Since he raised the question of privilege, now the Terrorist Investigation Division has raided his office in Kilinochchi, claims to have recovered some explosives and astonishingly, condoms and pornographic material! They have also arrested two of his staff and are holding them under the PTA. Handbills were distributed in Kilinochchi with pictures of the alleged pornography saying ‘This is your MP who speaks about young women being abused by the army’. He was also summoned to the TID office and subjected to a three hour inquiry just last week. Human Rights Watch has released a 141 page report two days ago on the sexual abuse of Tamil detainees. The 150,000 strong army presence in the Northern Province – one soldier to every five civilians – says more of what goes on in the open in the Tamil areas. This sense of impunity has been brought about solely due to the fact that no one has had to answer yet for the serious allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the last stages of the war. The UN Panel of Experts recommended an independent investigation into this with international supervision.

Even as the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) took up for discussion a U.S.-sponsored resolution on issues related to Sri Lanka, New Delhi on Wednesday said Colombo would have to fix accountability for the alleged violation of human rights and torture of Tamils and ensure a sustainable settlement of issues concerning them.

“There is no future [in Sri Lanka] unless there is reconciliation, there is no future unless there is accountability,” External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said, replying to a calling attention motion in the Rajya Sabha on the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka.

UK MP and former Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, supporting further action on Sri Lanka at the 22nd Sessions of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, in a video message, urged the UK and other Common-wealth members to call for a change of venue for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) scheduled to be held in Colombo.

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While road development is continuing, there seems to be little else happening in these areas. Housing schemes are taking off, but the people seem to rely on themselves in this aspect. Schooling, while happening, is under terrible circumstances and jobs are hard to come by.

Sri Lankan security forces have been using rape and other forms of sexual violence to torture suspected members or supporters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. While widespread rape in custody occurred during the armed conflict that ended in May 2009, Human Rights Watch found that politically motivated sexual violence by the military and police continues to the present.

Three years since the end of the war and Sri Lanka still struggles to respond to some of its long standing challenges. While there is an absence of armed conflict, there has been little progress in a realizing a just and equal society where dissent is accepted and diversity celebrated. Civil society and academia on the other hand, continue to imagine and advocate for alternative visions for the country based on an equitable distribution of resources, a respect for diverse identities, and a tolerance of dissent.

The International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES) has a long commitment to the values of plurality, inclusivity, dissent and critical scholarship. Building on this legacy, the ICES will host a conference that seeks to intellectually seize the current historical juncture and to make it a site for fresh insights into the emerging socio-political and cultural configurations of post-war Sri Lankan society. Regional and international perspectives will be integrated into the discussions, enabling the Sri Lankan experience to be contextualized within larger regional and global trends.

The conference will bring together local and internationally based scholars and artistes working on Sri Lanka and other post-war societies to create a space for dialogue and engagement. We hope that it will result in a rich body of critical literature and artwork that will contribute to the conceptualization of a more ‘just and equitable future’.

I am writing to find out if you would be willing to present an academic paper; present an innovative narrative, performance or documentary; or be part of a panel, on any of the following broad thematic areas:

· Aesthetics of dominance and resistance

· Media, discourse and the construction of reality(ies)

· Politics of recognition and difference

· Political economy and distributive justice

· Narratives of belonging and exclusion

· Governmentality, welfare and the discourses of development

· Faith, ideology and secularism

· Law, legitimacy/ illegitimacy and justice/ injustice

· Memory, memorialisation, remembering and forgetting

· Social movements and micro politics

The ICES is happy to consider contributions outside of these themes so long as they are within the overall framework of the conference. Attached to this mail is a more detailed note that provides the background to the meeting and the conference objectives. I do hope you will consider being part of this initiative and make a strong contribution.

The administration of President Mahinda Rajapaksa won the ethnic war, but Sri Lanka’s protracted conflict is more alive than ever. There is a lot of talk about how the situation in the North and East has improved, but most of these assertions are misleading. The rebuilding of physical infrastructure alone is not a very helpful indicator when it comes to reconciliation. The dearth of psychosocial assistance being provided, the thousands of disappeared who remain missing and the continued erosion of the rule of law contradict the Government of Sri Lanka’s (GoSL) assertion that the country has made meaningful progress on the reconciliation front.

At this point, national reconciliation is not just illusory; it is a fantasy and will be as long as the present regime maintains its antipathetic stance towards human rights, devolution and the implementation of the LLRC recommendations.

According to a letter issued by the Kilinochchi zonal education director on the 03rd of January 2013, hundred and three security personnel have been employed to teach the Sinhalese language in all schools within the Kilinochchi zone.

It is illegal to employ any person for teaching in government schools other than those who have been appointed by the Ministry of Education and who have been properly trained according to the teacher services regulations. This decision also goes against the LLRC Recommendation which urges that security forces personnel should move out of civil administration activities as a vital step towards post war reconciliation. As per Recommendation 9.134 of the LLRC report, “the security forces should dis-engage itself from all civil administration related activities as rapidly as possible.” In addition to this, Recommendations 9.171 calls for “the phasing out of the involvement of the security forces in civilian activities…”

It is strange that a nation with a majority of Buddhists has not understood properly what the Master has preached. It is stranger when some in that nation commit unwholesome acts in the name of the Buddha for the protection of the esteemed Dharma he has left behind for the posterity to follow for their own good irrespective of whether they are his followers or not. But it is not the strangest thing to observe here in this Buddha’s land. That is the silence of those erudite Buddhists who know of the Master’s Dharma properly and failure to speak up when they see the worst type of economic hit man being armed and released to prowl freely.

India will vote in support of a US-backed resolution against Sri Lanka proposed to be moved before the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva next month, Union minister in the Prime Minister’s Office ( PMO) V Narayansamy said on Sunday.